Interesting statistic. Or maybe alarming, you decide.

A couple weeks back, ndmd99 posted something that really piqued my interest. He commented that shots on goal were less indicative of scoring than total shot attempts.

Looking at the stats on College Hockey News this is almost entirely borne out, at least within our league. Big Ten teams appear to be the most interested in generating shots. 5 teams --Penn State, Notre Dame, Michigan State, Wisconsin, And Michigan -- are among the top-7 in shot attempts. Ohio State is 14th and Minnesota is 30th. So all 7 Big Ten teams are in the top-half of the NCAA in total shot attempts.

MSU, UM, PSU and Wisconsin are all among the top-12 in goals per game, corresponding quite well to their shot attempts. Minnesota comes in at 17th in goals per game. But the disparity in goals per game for Notre Dame versus the others is the alarming number. Notre Dame though, despite being 2nd in shot attempts per game is only 40th in the NCAA as far as actually scoring goals. Ohio State isn't much better at 38th, but the separation between their total shot attempts (14) and goals/game (38) is 24 spots, whereas Notre Dame's is 38. This is due I must assume in large part to our absolutely pathetic shooting %. We currently sit 58th there at a woefully inadequate 7.9%.

This is a glaring shortcoming on the part of this team, and I'm wondering why it is so damn bad. It seems to me that an emphasis over the break on continuing to shoot the puck but finding better shots should have been an overarching concern. Yet Notre Dame attempted 20 more shots over the weekend than Wisconsin did (119-99) but was almost doubled up in goals (9-5).

To me this is all about coaching. Notre Dame is skilled enough to possess the puck enough to shoot it as much as anybody. That means we know how to win faceoffs, we know how to transition the puck into the attack zone, and we know that you occasionally need to shoot the puck. But that is where the breakdown is. What are we doing with the shots? Are the things that are making other teams successful being emphasized? Or are we emphasizing things that worked 10 or 15 years ago but no longer work as well in 2024?

Check out ndmd99s post and the article linked in the post. I re-read both and am starting to see some pretty obvious reasons our offense has sucked so much this season and has been pedestrian at best the last few.

His post is worth another look as it has some very interesting numbers included, as well as a link to an informative article.

Click here for link at https://ndnation.com/boards/showpost.php?b=hockey;pid=72473;